Archive | HTML5 Apps

I think Apple is starting to have a love-hate relationship with HTML5. When Apple bans an app in the App store or gets greedy, developers seem to always turn to HTML5. Do you remember the time Apple started requiring third-party app developers to sell any available content inside their apps instead of linking out to browser based items on a website? Apple wanted their 30 percent and a HTML5 Instant Reader was born. Well now Apple is having issues with bitcoin wallet apps. High-profile bitcoin wallet providers such as Coinbase and Blockchain have seen their apps removed from the App store. It was only in the past couple of days that Apple approved the bitWallet iOS App which without workarounds is almost useless because the bitcoin sending function is blocked. It’s kind of like having a traditional wallet full of cash that was glued together by your little brother. Sure, you can get the money out eventually but it will require some time and a speech to your brother about how glueing a strangers wallet together may result in a wedgie.

There is a HTML5 bitcoin wallet app outside of Apple’s sphere of influence called Coinpunk. It is an open source bitcoin wallet service that you can run on your own server. The user interface is entirely written in HTML with JavaScript and the backend is built with Node.js. The code is written to provide future support for more bitcoin node clients, including upcoming SPV-based wallets that require less resources to work. You can also accept payments via a QR code, do QR code scanning, and enjoy two-factor authentication.

Watch this HTML5 bitcoin wallet app being used to buy a Subway sandwich in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Coinpunk is trying to raise funds to further the project on Indiegogo, an international crowdfunding platform. There are less than 48 hours to go on the campaign. They say they want to “prove that you can make 100% open source HTML5/JS bitcoin wallets that work just as well as proprietary native ones, if not better.”

I do not own any bitcoin and that makes me sad. I want start though and have created a bitcoin wallet where you can send me bitcoins: 19BxpcYMh44PXbR3ZDv7UcffasKnk1MHn3

Why would you send me bitcoins?

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I built a lot of animated gifs for clients when I first started working online. The file size of my gifs could get rather large even after optimizing them in Fireworks so I would sometimes need to make the same thing in Flash. Flash was good for reducing the file size of my gif animations but using it opened up a whole host of other problems. So when I came across a new website called Gfycat that claimed to be able to reduce the file size of an animated gif by turing it into a HTML5 video, I had to try it.

You should see what I created the other day as an animated gif or HTML5 video. If only my previous paragraph is showing, please refresh the page. If you see an animated countdown that never ends, please refresh the page. If you see floaters, please visit your eye doctor and then refresh the page.

I embedded my HTML5 Blog animation using the Gfycat embed feature which is still in the early alpha stage. There are some hiccups using the embed feature. The biggest one I found was that on mobile devices the gif will show instead of the HTML5 video. If my embedded animation is not working for you, please visit it on the Gfycat website here: http://gfycat.com/YoungDisfiguredBonobo. That link was randomly generated. Yes, “YoungDisfiguredBonobo” is not my handy work. Gfycat URLs consist of this structure: AdjectiveAdjectiveAnimal. I didn’t know what a bonobo was so when I first saw it I thought the link was “YoungDisfiguredBono”. It gave me a chuckle.

Gfycat did do a good job at reducing the size of the animated gifs I uploaded. The HTML5 Blog animation I made went from a size of 3.2 MB as an animated gif to 917 KB as an HTML5 video. Results will vary. There is an example on the Gfycat website of a 4.5 MB animated gif that when optimized into an HTML5 video, the size went to a spectacular 286 KB. Continue Reading →

All of my HTML5 conference fanatics face a tough choice next week. There are two major HTML5 related events on the same day. The usual convention would be to go to the conference that is closest to where you are in the world. I live in Okinawa so that line of thinking never helps me. The next thought would be to go to the event with the biggest headliner. The HTML5 Developer Conference in San Francisco has a laundry list of great speakers scheduled but nobody famous outside of the tech community. This is of course not entirely true if you’re a fan of puns because the CEO and co-founder of Famo.us will be speaking. On the other hand, Apps World in London, which includes a day full of HTML5 workshops has Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. Going to this conference probably makes more sense for me since I always wanted to be the second person on the island to own a broken Mac autographed by Woz.

Here is a look at some of the highlights of both events on October 23, 2013. Continue Reading →